Interview: Crimson Alliance Developers

Working for a game studio is a lot of fun but also a lot of hard work. You have a bunch of highly motivated, extremely creative people in the same space, all trying to make the best game they can. We take pride in being a highly collaborative environment where good ideas can come from anyone in the company. To help with this, we all work in one large open pit – there are no offices – so it’s hard not to know what is happening on the project at any particular point. You can’t help but hear chatter from any discipline in the company. It’s also hard not to hear about someone’s crazy weekend, or what people are doing in Skyrim. During the day most people can expect to partake in a playtest of some sort to test out a new feature or level. We place a high value on daily playtests to make sure that our games remain fun for the duration of the project.

2.What’s the best/worst part about your job?

That’s easy. The best thing is being able to work on top franchises and new IP with an awesome team. The worst thing is cutting features in the name of meeting deadlines, even though you LOVE that feature.
3.Any weird or wacky people that you work with?

Certain Affinity, like all places I’ve worked, has its own cast of characters. I’ll save those individuals the embarrassment of calling them out specifically, but they know who they are. I think to work in this industry you have to be a bit weird and wacky. We make entertainment which requires creative personalities, and sometimes that creativity has the added bonus of giving some people a “different” perspective on the world.

4.How did the idea for Crimson Alliance come about?

After creating Age of Booty, we knew we wanted to return to the XBLA space. It’s a fun space to do smaller scale projects that can take creative risks. Now keep in mind that even though a lot of our commercial experience is with FPS titles, there are a lot of action-RPG fans at the company. I myself worked on the Titan Quest titles. So I think that was always an itch we wanted to scratch so to speak. So starting there, we knew an RPG on XBLA had to be action-centric, and many of the things that tend to slow things down in an RPG – browsing inventory, lengthy NPC dialogue to name a few – had to be streamlined considerably. It’s a delicate line to walk for an action RPG, pleasing enough people looking for action, but having enough to offer RPG fans.
5.Could you describe Crimson Alliance for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet?

Crimson Alliance is an action-RPG, heavy on the action, supporting 4-player cooperative play either on your couch at home or via Xbox LIVE. You’ll encounter fearsome creatures across a multitude of environments on your way to defeat the minions of the Soul Siren. We emphasize score in the game, which might not be standard fare for RPGs, but it’s really addictive trying to beat your friend’s scores. We played a LOT of the game in the studio obviously, but trying to beat each other’s scores became a fierce competition!
6.How large was the team that created Crimson Alliance and how long did it take to develop?

At our peak I think we were somewhere around 25 people, but for most of the project it was fewer than that. It took about a year to make the game.

7.When you first set out to make Crimson Alliance did you envision it to turn out the way it did?

I think with all projects you start with the initial vision for what you imagine the game to be, and you hold to that as much as possible, but you have to be open to let the game evolve as it develops to some degree. It’s very difficult to design a game on paper, execute, and then have the end result not only be exactly to spec, but it also be fun. We spend a lot of time playtesting our games, and many times something new and exciting is illuminated that is worth exploring further. For example, we initially never planned to have a pick up and carry mechanic in the game, but after extensive playtests and numerous people commenting on it being on their wishlist, a small group went off and prototyped a working system that totally blew everyone away. And this was very near the end of the project so I was nervous to say the least! So to answer your question, I think the final game was what we imagined it would become, but during development we gathered extra features that we did not imagine would be in the shipping game and some systems evolved considerably.
8.Looking back on Crimson Alliance what are the things that you are most proud of?

From a production perspective, shipping a new IP, with a new team, with a new engine is no easy feat! But as a gamer I’m most proud of the simple, accessible combat system. With the addition of the score mechanic, I found myself playing the game a lot even after it went live. And for me it’s rare to play a game after launch that I’ve already playtested and beaten over and over during development. At one point I was even at the top of the leaderboards! Well, until everyone else in the world started playing.
9.Was there anything you were hoping to get into Crimson Alliance that did not make it? Any chance you will try and get it in as DLC?

I think if you asked most people on the team what they wanted in the game, it would be the Ogre. We spent a lot of time on an elaborate boss sequence involving a massive Ogre, but it just didn’t meet the quality bar we set for the rest of the game. We had talented people working on it, but after a certain point we had to abandon the idea because of time. We’d love to make more DLC, so there is always a chance we might see the Ogre in the future!
10.Can you give us some tips or strategies for Crimson Alliance?

If you are after high scores in the game, use those explosive barrels to kill multiple enemies at once. You’ll get massive score bonuses for simultaneous kills so look for areas with barrels, or better yet carry some with you into areas with no barrels. Also you’ll get your best scores on higher difficulty levels, but enemies require more damage to kill, so soften up a group with traditional attacks first, and then finish them with a barrel. The higher difficulties are also much more manageable with friends, so if you are stuck, find some help. Personally I had to recruit friends to get some of my scores on Storm of Blood and Asturi maps. Those can be DIFFICULT!
11.Now that Crimson Alliance is out, are you in any early stages of planning another Xbox Live Arcade game?

We’re not announcing anything at this point, but I know we’d love to make another arcade title.
12.What is it like going from working on FPS games to a dungeon crawler RPG?

From a pure development standpoint, there is an initial adjustment moving from FPS to a third-person isometric camera. Creating a world in this perspective requires a whole different bag of tricks. One big thing is level of detail – because the camera is so far above the character you don’t need quite the same level of detail in the world as an FPS where you can get up close to most objects and inspect every inch of an object. Also the construction of levels is a bit different because there are optimal directions of movement – the upper left and right corners of the screen are best for giving players a bigger view of a room. The lower corners are good for springing surprises because of the decreased visibility. Regarding systems, making an RPG with balanced systems is a far, far more complex task than making an FPS with a handful of weapons.
But with all that said, philosophically we tapped into our FPS experience when designing encounters. We’re proud that all of the encounters in the game are hand crafted – no randomized spawns anywhere. Because of this, we were able to design scenarios where players must think tactically to survive, something that you usually see in FPS games.
13. Were the final avatar awards your first ideas or did you go though a few other ones before deciding on those?

We had some crazy ideas for avatar awards but some were held in check by the limitations of the avatar system. Even though some of those far out ideas didn’t make the cut, we’re still happy with what made it into the game.
14. Who did the voice talent for the three main characters?

Direwolf was voiced by Michael McConnohie. Moonshade was voiced by Sumalee Monatano. And Gnox was voiced by Malcom-Jamal Warner, better known as Theo Huxtible!

15. Can you tell us anything that the future might hold for Crimson Alliance?

We haven’t announced anything yet but we’d love to keep supporting Crimson Alliance!

We would like to thank Tom for answering our questions and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for Crimson Alliance either. If you haven’t picked up this game yet, check out our review and go and pick up the game yourself.